


Little Lion Man

by mischief_managed1021



Category: Original Work
Genre: Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Enemies to Lovers, F/F, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2020-12-21
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:01:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28208745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mischief_managed1021/pseuds/mischief_managed1021
Summary: Everett James is a standard seventeen-year-old boy; he has friends, a loving (albeit quirky) mother, and an extremely attractive English teacher. One fateful winter break changes the way he perceives an unexpected individual that has haunted his past, and he finds out that they might not be so different after all. Rated M for mature themes and language
Relationships: Original Female Character/Original Female Character, Original Female Character/Original Male Character, Original Male Character/Original Male Character
Kudos: 3





	1. Chapter 1

1991, Spokane Washington  
Chapter 1

Expect the unexpected.

Everett’s AP Literature teacher had told the class this cliche every year without fail, but Everett never expected it to apply to him so heavily in the future. Or at all, really.

Seventeen-year-old Everett James sat slumped over in his chair and watched the little black hand on the clock move towards the end of the day. _To freedom_ Everett thought, tearing his eyes away from the agonizingly slow-moving clock. He scanned the room for the hundredth time, his eyes moving from the fluorescent lights on the ceiling to his English teacher, Mr. Warner who was furiously scribbling down grades on students’ papers. Mr. Warner was fresh out of college, and adorning his walls to prove it were several red and black banners emblazoned with the Ohio State University crest. Mr. Warner glanced up briefly from the pile of The Great Gatsby essays that littered his desk and caught Everett’s eye. The teacher grinned at Everett and mouthed _“Almost done”_ before returning to the heap of essays. Everett weakly smiled back, and let his eyes roam elsewhere. As his eyes were about to return to their home base, the wall clock, they locked with another pair of narrowed eyes.

Leo Clemonte was eyeing Everett with a look of contempt that briefly marred his sharp, aristocratic features. Everett threw back an equally matched glare that conveyed immense loathing, and he proceeded to petulantly stick out his tongue at the other boy. Leo threw up a rude hand gesture in retaliation, his black fingernails starkly contrasting against the almost-translucent shade of his skin. Everett rolled his eyes and managed to tear his eyes away from the penetrating steely gray of Leo’s. He began to fiddle with the fraying sleeve of his sweater, pulling it down over his wrists, and he tried to rid his mind of Leo’s offending face.

Everett and Leo had loathed each other since they were five years old. In kindergarten, Leo had harassed Everett about the increasingly shabby state of his clothes; Leo’s family was extraordinarily wealthy, while Everett’s was not. Leo disliked Everett for his shabbiness and Everett disliked Leo for his self-righteous and overly posh demeanor.

Throughout middle school, Leo had always found something about Everett that he deemed unsatisfactory, whether it was his unkempt hair, his secondhand clothing, or his scuffed shoes. Everett was at a perpetual boiling point when it came to Leo, and a tsunami threatened its presence in Everett’s stomach whenever the other boy so much as opened his mouth.

Everett groaned inwardly; he had begun to think class would never end, and any sanity he had attempted to preserve throughout the week was rapidly slipping away. The bell finally rang and students filed out into the hallways, cheering for the holidays ahead. Everett stood on tiptoe, looking for the bright red hair of his best friend, Eris Young.

“Everett!” Eris’s raspy voice came from behind Everett, and relieved, he turned to go towards her until his feet caught in the laces of his Converse and he stumbled into someone.

“Oh my God I’m so sorr- oh, it’s just you.” Everett had stumbled into none other than Leo Clemonte and the opulent air that he seemed to carry with him wherever he went.

“Watch where you’re going, dipshit” Leo sneered at Everett as he sauntered away.

“Prick” Everett mumbled as he reached Eloise.

Eris rolled her bottle green eyes as they began to walk towards the exit; she had never understood why Everett and Leo disliked each other so much.

“You should really learn to get along; it’s been twelve years,” Eris expressed disapprovingly as they walked down the English hallway, towards freedom.

“I can’t help that he’s the world’s biggest douchebag,” countered Everett, running his hands through the copious amounts of his hair.

“I just think that- oh there they are.”

Everett was silently grateful that he didn't get to know what Eris thought; their other three friends were approaching from the other end of the hallway. Theodore (Theo) Radcliffe grinned at Everett, his arm linked with the arm of his girlfriend: Winslet Amari. Theo and Winslet had recently started dating, and it was becoming exceedingly difficult to be in close proximity to them; they kept looking at each other like they wanted to eat the other's face. Trailing slightly behind Winslet and Theo was Coralynn, or Cora, Castro. Coralynn had a disgruntled expression on her face; she didn't seem to enjoy the happy couple’s presence as much as they enjoyed each other’s.

“Hey guys, what’s going on?” Theo asked as he unglued his eyes from Winslet’s and walked towards the exit with the rest of the group.

“I bombed my chemistry final,” Coralynn huffed grumpily, pushing the door open and stepping into the freezing Washington air. “I mixed up endothermic and exothermic properties, and forgot the atomic number of Helium.”

“It’s okay,” Eris consoled, patting Cora on the back gingerly. “At least you didn't forget dimensional analysis like I did.”

Everett shuddered, remembering the horrors of dimensional analysis. It took several late night sessions of near-breakdowns at the kitchen table to get a proper understanding of it. He was torn from his thoughts as the rest of the group began to converse about their traveling plans.

Winslet unwrapped a stick of gum and popped it into her mouth. “So when are we leaving?” She asked thickly through the gum.

“Probably around five. I need to pack still, and so does my cousin. He’s coming with us to the cabin,” answered Eris, scuffing the toes of her Doc Martens on the parking lot pavement.

“Five?! That’s only two hours from now. I still need a post-final exam cry in the shower and that’ll take at least an hour,” exclaimed Winslet in mock-horror, her big dark almond-shaped eyes wide with terror.

“Mind if I join?” Asked Theo, suggestively raising his eyebrows. Winslet blushed and smacked him, ruffling his dark, coily hair.

“Cheeky bastard.” Everett grinned at Theo.

They reached Everett’s car, and all climbed in. Eris promptly claimed shotgun, and no one argued with her, because everyone must respect the rules of shotgun. To her dismay, Cora ended up smashed in between Winslet and Theo, and pretended to projectile vomit as they reached around her to hold hands.

“Oh, incidentally Er, who’s your cousin?” asked Cora, abandoning her projectile-vomiting act, frowning slightly. “You’ve never mentioned any relatives living in the area.”

Perhaps it was simply a result of the deafening sound of the car engine starting that Eris seemed not to hear Cora, because she didn't respond. Instead, she looked disapprovingly at Everett as the engine roared to life.

“Ev, this car is not going to make seventeen hours to the cabin in snow-infested Colorado,” Eris theorized, wrinkling her freckled nose.

Everett thought that was a rather unfair assumption to make, as he regarded his car like a doting mother would her child; it could do no wrong in his eyes. His car, also referred to as Rhiannon, was a faded teal 1979 Chevrolet Astro Van. The interior was surprisingly clean, albeit covered in stickers. Everett always made a point of buying stickers wherever he went so that he could put them in his car. He enjoyed the chaotic order of cluttered stickers, but he also enjoyed any opportunity to vex Eris.

“I think we should take my mom’s Toyota,” said Eloise, and Everett sighed because he knew that the newer, shinier car that was never in danger of spontaneous combustion was the more practical option.

“However will you fit us in your mother’s five-seated car?” Asked Theo in mock-horror. “You all may be extremely short and malnourished but I am a big strong man.” Theo flexed and kissed his biceps.

“Yeah, you need at least two seats for his ego and another for his hair products,” muttered Cora, but the corners of her mouth turned up as she said it. Theo looked only mildly offended.

As they drove through the streets, their surroundings became one wet gray and green blur outside their windows; Washington always seemed to be covered in a thin sheen of moisture. Everett turned onto Pawnee Drive and stopped at Number 632.

“Get out bitches,” said Everett, winking at Winslet and Eloise; they lived next door to each other.

Eris kissed him on the cheek and hopped out of the car, her mane of red hair swinging behind her as she skipped to her front door. Winslet was saying a wordless goodbye of sorts to Theo, and Cora was fake-projectile vomiting again.

“Can’t wait to meet your cousin!” Everett called after her retreating form. Eris gave him a strange look as she disappeared into her doorway.

Winslet uttered a “Thanks” to Everett breathlessly, and went one house to the left.

Everett backed out of Eris’s driveway and turned right on Carson Parkway. He stopped at Number 214, his house.

“Okay, I’ll see you guys at five or whenever Winslet is done drowning herself in a feeling of existential dread and failure,” said Everett, reaching for his book bag.

Cora and Theo hopped out of the car, waving to Everett as they walked across the street to their houses.

“See you in a few hours!” shouted Cora from her front yard. Her short, choppily-cut dark hair whipped around the corner as she headed into her house.

Everett closed his front door and shouted a quick “Mom I’m home,” as he threw his book bag at the foot of the staircase and jogged up the stairs to his room. Everett’s room was painted an off-white, but it was almost impossible to tell since practically every inch of his room was covered in posters and pages of books that had been ripped out and artfully displayed on the walls. His desk sat in a corner of his room, drowning in a sea of papers, journals, and used teabags. Everett threw his suitcase on his bedspread and began to pack. He decided to pack his favorite dark green sweater, the one that made him look as Eris so lovingly put it, homeless. Winslet liked his sweater, at least. She told him that it complimented his Iranian features, which would have been weird coming from anyone other than Winslet. He threw in a pair of sweatpants, two pairs of well-worn jeans, lace up boots, and his favorite pair of warm socks. Everett found his favorite yellow winter hat and his warmest pair of gloves, and threw them into the rapidly-full suitcase. Hesitating for a moment, he also decided to bring a nice set of clothes since they were inevitably going to take pictures on Christmas, and Everett didn't feel like listening to Eris’s disapproving tuts for the entirety of Christmas day. He managed to fit in the presents that he bought for each of his friends, but just barely. He squeezed the suitcase shut, and it groaned under the amount of clothing that was shoved into it. Everett adjusted his glasses and flopped down on his bed, waiting for Eris to arrive with her cousin.

By the time five o clock rolled around, Everett was pacing in front of the door. His mother asked him if he remembered everything, toothbrush, underwear, extra warm clothing, pajamas blah blah blah. Everett’s mother had decided to go to Italy for the holidays with her friends as a newly independent woman. Everett reassured her that yes, he did indeed pack all of those things and that she needn’t worry about him. Just as he was about to make his eighty-fifth pace in front of the door, Eloise pulled up in her mother’s Toyota.

“Bye Mom,” he exhaled, kissing her on the cheek and giving her a brief hug.

“Goodbye, sweetheart, be safe!” She called after him. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!”

Everett snorted; his mom had left her family, moved to California, and decided to become a hippie as soon as she turned eighteen. She had also been in an “alternative spiritual community” which Everett knew was just a fancy word for cult. Everett waved goodbye to his mother, opened Eris’s car door, and got in. Horror replaced his neutral expression as he saw who was sitting in the passenger seat.


	2. Chapter 2

Leo Clemonte sat in the passenger seat, an identical look of horror plastered on his face.

“You told me he wasn’t coming!” He sputtered indignantly.

“You never told me he was your cousin!” Everett exclaimed.

Eris had a cross between a guilty and smug look on her face. “I thought it would be a good time to put aside your differences! It’s been twelve goddamn years!” She deflected, her eyebrows knitting together defensively. “Also, how did you not work out the fact that we’re related? We both have astrological names; our parents are weirdly into naming their children after space-related things. We also have the same facial structure, our cheekbones are a family trait!”

Everett ignored this.

“I’m not riding in a car with _him_ ,” complained Everett petulantly. “Let me out, Eris!”

Eris appeared not to have heard him as she put the car in drive.

“I told Winslet I’d pick her up last; she was busy teaching her brother how to take care of the dog without killing it,” stated Eris mildly as she pulled into Cora’s driveway. She honked the horn and Cora came striding across her lawn, her hair blowing in the wind. She rapped on the passenger seat window, and Leo rolled it down, a sour expression on his face.

“What?” He asked crossly.

“Out,” said Cora, crossing her arms. “I’m not sitting by the two lovebirds for the entire seventeen hours to the cabin, I’ll kill them.”

Leo snorted. “Sorry, but I’m afraid you’ll have to suffer,” he said smirking.

 _Asshole,_ thought Everett.

“I’m not leaving until you give me the front seat,” said Cora, glaring daggers at Leo. She looked quite intimidating with her dark makeup, nose ring, and shoulder-length dark hair. Everett would have immediately complied if he were in Leo’s situation but he seemed to be doing no such thing.

Eris rolled her eyes. “Leo, just climb in the back seat,” she said. “We won’t leave until Cora gets the front seat.”

“The rules of shotgun are unflinchingly rigid, and I will not succumb to the wishes of her,” Leo shot back, turning his nose up.

Cora tapped her foot impatiently. “I’ll wait,” she said as she cocked her head to the side and feigned a yawn.

Leo hesitated for a few seconds before sighing. “Fine,” he fumed crossly as he unbuckled his seatbelt and sidled into the seat next to Everett, throwing a look of contempt at him as he did so. Cora looked exceptionally smug beneath her round sunglasses

“Thank you, darling” purred Cora sweetly as though she hadn’t just been fully prepared to commit arson over the front seat. Ezra didn't respond; he looked straight ahead. Just then, Theo came jogging over.

“What’s he doing here?” asked Theo motioning to Leo, surprised.

“He’s coming with us for the holidays!” bubbled Eloise brightly, beaming at Everett and Leo through her mirror.

Theo paused for a second before shrugging and uttering “Cool.” He threw his bag in the trunk, squeezed himself next to Leo, and shut the door. Eris put her car in drive and headed to Winslet’s.

Winslet jogged out of her house looking especially flustered. “My brother had a twenty minute meltdown over the dog,” she explained. “But we got it sorted out in the end,” she breathed, opening the door.

“Hey, Er, not to be a buzzkill but there are three seats back here and four of us,” pointed out Theo.

“You might have to really squeeze in,” Eris said, tapping the steering wheel impatiently. Winslet awkwardly clambered over Theo and practically ended up sitting on his lap, although he didn’t look as though he particularly minded. Everett and Leo were trying their hardest not to make any sort of contact: Everett was pushed up against the window, the cup holder digging into his left hip. Despite their efforts, both boys ended up being squished against each other, as Everett was a still-growing five feet and ten inches tall, while Leo towered over him slightly at a lanky six foot one. Cora appeared perfectly content in the front seat; she had painted her fingernails a deep blue and was admiring them.

“Is everyone situated?” Asked Eris, not waiting for an answer as she stepped on the gas.

Everett sighed; this was going to be the longest car ride in the history of the universe.


	3. Chapter 3

Approximately thirty minutes after they departed, Theo stated that he had to use the bathroom. Everyone groaned; they didn't want to have to squeeze themselves back into the car for the second time.

“If you don’t pull into a gas station right now, I swear to God I will piss in your car,” warned Theo menacingly.

“Fine.” Eris sighed and changed lanes so that she could pull into the gas station a quarter mile up the road.

Winslet, Theo, Everett, and Leo all got out of the car but Eris stayed to fill up the car with gas, and Cora stayed firmly put; she didn't want to jeopardize her place in the front seat. Leo didn't bother holding the door for Everett as he sauntered into the gas station.

“Asshole” Everett mumbled to himself. Leo probably heard him, but pretended not to acknowledge it if he did.

Theo made a beeline for the bathroom, and Everett watched as Winslet browsed the shelves for something to eat and drink. She held up a package of gummy bears and inspected the ingredients.

“Damn, these aren’t vegan,” Winslet huffed, placing the gelatinous bears back on the shelf with disappointment. She meandered over to the trail mix to look for something edible and vegan.

Everett wandered over to the fridge section. He selected an orange soda from the fridge, and snagged a bag of butterscotch candies and a bar of chocolate as he approached the gas station counter.

Leo wrinkled his nose at the selection of food, and Winslet shot him a sympathetic look as she took a place in line behind Everett.

“You can have some of my trail mix,” Winslet offered, gesturing to the large bag of trail mix she had clutched in her hand. “It’s vegan,” she added, double-checking the ingredients for any offending dairy products that might be hidden amongst the variety of nuts and raisins.

Leo shook his head and politely declined.

Winslet shrugged and rummaged around in her handmade purse before fishing out two crumpled one-dollar bills. She waved at Leo as she exited the store, ripping open her trail mix and popping an almond into her mouth.

Leo sighed and left the store without buying anything.

Everett slouched against the trunk of the car, arms folded, eyes downcast at the cigarette-littered ground until the tinkling of the gas station door caused him to look up. Leo strutted towards the car, his long legs cutting gracefully through the frigid air of Eastern Washington. Everett stared despite himself; there was an indescribable quality that emanated from Leo, and it was magnetic. Leo’s artfully ruffled pitch-black hair fell in a graceful cascade to his shoulders, framing his haughty face. His prominent cheekbones triangulated into his chin, and his mouth was sculpted into a perpetual smirk. Steel-gray eyes were framed by thick, black eyelashes and complemented by flawlessly arched brows. Leo’s black trenchcoat billowed out dramatically behind his body; even nature was obsequious towards him.

Everett ripped his gaze away from Leo, realizing his gaze had lingered for too long because a smirk had started to spread across the other boy’s face.

“Like what you see, James?” Leo asked, a mischievous grin slithering across his Aristocratic face.

“You wish,” spat Everett, getting into the car and glaring at the seat in front of him.

Everett cursed himself as he folded himself back into a cramped position. Leo sidled next to him and Everett once again tried distancing himself from the other boy as much as he possibly could. _He_ would _smell like citrus,_ he thought to himself crossly. Everett surreptitiously sniffed himself; he didn’t think he smelled bad, but how was he to know? Leo snickered.

“What the hell are you doing?” He inquired, amusement evident on his stupidly chiseled, pale face.

“Oh, piss off,” Everett spat as he abandoned all of his futile attempts at figuring out what he smelled like. He sighed, pressed his face against the cool glass of the car window, and closed his eyes.


End file.
